Albert welcomes you back to his Square …… Friday in May*

For those in the know and heaps more who just wandered into Albert Square, the place has been progressively reoccupied by office workers, tourists and me.

Our Albert, 2026

The sun was shining and having completed a trip to the Crescent in Salford, the bus deposited me back by the Town Hall.

On Albert's steps, 2026

Sitting below Mr. Heywood, 2026

And as you do, I took a stroll across this much-loved open space which along with the Town Hall went dark while the builders, and restorers got to work.

Sharing the moment, 2026

I can remember the square back in the 1960s when buses and taxis vied with parked cars to dominate what should have been a grand civic statement framed by the Town Hall and shared with two public lavatories, Prince Albert, and four 19th century worthies.

It was busy and not always a place you wanted to linger.

Confused and cluttered, 1979

Passing through, 2026

But judging by the numbers sitting in the sun yesterday that has changed, and it is now becoming popular again and will rival  St Peter’s Square just round the corner.

Mr. Gladstone approves, 2026

Of course, the square by the trams does have one of the only statues to a woman, while Albert shares his spot with Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Heywood, John Bright, and Bishop Fraser.

What we have lost, 1979

Still the fountain will soon be working again leaving me just to reflect that Albert and hs four chums should be pleased with the place they inhabit.

Location; Albert Square

Pictures; Friday in May sharing the square with office workers and tourists, 1979 & 2026, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Ofcourse Eric would dispute that the square is Albert's ... pointing outt that it is and always was a place for everyone.

Of paddling pools and vanished pastimes in Chorlton Park

Now if you are of a certain age you will remember the paddling pool in Chorlton Park.

Now this is not to be confused with the big open air swimming pool which was a feature of the park when it first opened, and was 50 yards long, 21 yards wide running from 5 feet 3 inches at the deep end to 2 feet and 6 inches at the shallow end.

It is a story for the blog for another time but does appear in that book I wrote with Mr Topping and entitled
The Quirks of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, which came out last year.

So back to the paddling pool.  Until yesterday I only had the one picture of the paddling pool which dates from the 1930s, but yesterday Roger Shelly sent over this one, which he took in the 1960s or 70s.

Leaving me just to include the map from 1933showing all the features of the newly built park.

Location; Chorlton Park

Picture; the paddling pool, circa 1960s/70s from the collection of Roger Shelly, and detail from the OS map of Manchester & Salford, 1933-34

Lost and forgotten streets of Salford nu 8 .... Chapel Street

Now before anyone says anything I am quite well aware that Chapel Street is neither lost nor forgotten.

Anyone who has tried to cross the road from Trinity Church to the other side during the rush hour well testify to that.

But for JBS who sent this picture postcard on July 12 1905 at 3.30 pm Chapel Street as she experienced it has long gone.

She had arrived that morning “all safe ..... weather Beautiful, if I can I shall stay here till Wednesday providing I can find lodgings.”

I can’t be sure but given that the card was addressed to a Miss Smith of 78 Wellington Street, Batley, I think we can assume she was from Yorkshire.

And the rest as they is up to the curious to match her lost Chapel Street with ours today.

Location; Salford 3

Picture; Chapel Street, 1905, from the collection of Mrs Bishop

Treasures from adventures in Peckham and Greenwich .............

To this day I wonder what happened to the gas mask and the replica18th century cap gun we found on our adventures.

Andrew Simpson, 1959

They weren’t found on the same day and now almost sixty years after the discoveries I have no clear idea of when we actually came across them.

We found the gas mask in a row of derelict houses on Queens Road up past the station.

I always thought that the block had been the victim of the Blitz, but it is more likely they were just awaiting demolition having done seventy or so years and were too tired to be saved.

And on what was a grey indifferent winter’s day with the light fading Jimmy, me and John Cox went exploring in the houses.

I remember they were still pretty much intact and somehow we got inside, wandered around and came across a pristine gas mask, still in its box.

It had that shinny look as if it had just come off the production line, with not a mark or scratch.

The filter I remember was white and there was a green painted strip around the black nozzle and I have no idea what happened to it.

It will have been the prize of the day but who took possession of it or what they did with it is lost.

Walking the tunnel, 2017

I do know that the cap gun stayed with me for a while and may have lingered around the house till we moved out to Eltham.

It had been found on one of our regular walks through the Greenwich Foot Tunnel, somewhere midway when the incline ends and you start to see the other end.

As adventures go it was always one of the good ones.  Aged ten there was the slight thrill at being under the River with all that water above you, and more often than not you were almost on your own, making the place just that bit scary.

Looking down to the Greenwich Foot Tunnel, 1977

Added to which there were the echo of your voices and then the sound of strange footsteps which would take an age before you could identify the person they belonged to.

Sometimes that led to the guessing game. Grown up or kid, male or female, old or young?  There were endless permutations and it lasted as long as it took for the mystery person to appear or how soon we bored with the game.

Finally there was the exit into that other place and having got there we felt obliged to stay in the small park and gaze out back across the river towards home.

But mindful that we were on someone else’s turf the stay was always short.

The Woolwich Foot Tunnel, 1978

What I do find curious is that we never used the Woolwich Foot Tunnel, that had to wait until the family moved to Eltham, and with the counter attraction of the Ferry, walking under the Thames was never going to happen.

By which time my Peckham adventures were over.

But in rediscovering them I remembered one last find, which came from the old Gaumont on Peckham High Street.  It wasn’t one I often went in preferring the ABC on the Old Kent Road but it was there that I found a shed load of those old film cuttings, which were small but when held up to light revealed an image.

The trouble of course was that there was little chance of ever re-sequencing them and in a matter of months they were thrown away. Just when I had come across them is also forgotten but I do know that the cinema closed on May 15th 1961, bowing out with Norman Wisdom in the “Bulldog Breed”and “The Final Dream”.

Such are the discoveries made on adventures.

Pictures; the foot tunnels, April 2017 from the collection of Neil Simpson, Looking down to the foot tunnel, 1977 from the collection of Jean Gammons, Andrew Simpson, circa 1959 and the Woolwich Foot Tunnel, 1978, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Watching the Meadows change ......... June 1965

I wonder just how many people remember this scene?

We are on the Meadows, and according to the caption this was “June 16, 1965, Clearing Water Street Cleansing Department, View of Hardy Depot”.

It is one of the photographs generated by Neil Simpson who “ worked on the Town Hall Photographer's Collection Digitisation Project, in the Central Library, which currently is Volunteer led and Volunteer staffed.

The negatives in the collection are dated from 1956 to 2007 and there are approximately 200,000 negatives to be digitised at three minutes a scan.

This is an image I have never seen before and I am guessing the building must be Hardy Farm.

That said I am puzzled by the bit of the caption referring to Water Street and am not too arrogant to admit to being stumped by it.

I have never come across the name during all my years in Chorlton, or in the research I have done.

So this is one to turn over to anyone who remembers the scene, walked that bit of Hardy Lane or can offer an explanation to the name.

Of course there might be a clue in the buildings in the distance which don't suggest we are looking at where Hardy Lane runs out on to the Meadows.

I wonder whether were instead on Turn Moss with Stretford in the distance.

And that just leaves me to open up the debate, which no sooner had I posted the story and Bill Sumner replied, with,

"I think the view above is taken from the bottom of Bradley Lane next to the water treatment/sewage works. the line of electric pylons is correct and is still there today, but the gas holder is not the one at Gorse Hill Stretford but the one at Dane Road Sale. 

Looking on Old Maps I cannot find a Water St either. The Dane Roadd Gas Holder was built in 1935 on the old sewage works site and was built as an extension to Stretford Gas Co that also supplied Sale and Ashton on Mersey. 

The gas holder in Stretford would have been out of sight to the left of photo. The old cottage would have disappeared because the Stretford Works was enlarged and a row of staff houses built here in the 1960's, probably the reason this photo was taken. Thanks for the new view"

And quick as a flash Neil also responded with "I can answer some of your questions Andrew. 

This image was in a set taken for Manchester Corporation's Cleansing Department, who were based at a huge site on Water Street near MOSI in Manchester. 

They had a Destructor on that site (is an incinerator) and roughly sorted the refuse collected into 'for burning' or 'tipping'.

Some of the refuse for tipping was taken to Hardy Lane Farm as they were using it to 'reclaim' land.

Bill Sumner was quite right in saying that the Gasholder was the one at Dane Road as I worked that out earlier."

And the final word goes to Ann who spotted the obvious, "have just read your comment, think the quotation should read ' Cleaning water, Street Cleansing Dept' Comma missing. Explains why there isn't a Water Street in Chorlton."

Not much more to say than thank you,  Bill, Neil.and Ann

Location; the Meadows

Picture; June 16, 1965, Clearing Water Street Cleansing Department, View of Hardy Depot, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

Lesnes Abbey ..........once lost and now found courtesy of Woolwich and District Antiquarian Society

Lesnes Abbey was a place I discovered purely by chance in the summer of 1966.

The north wast wall of the abbey, 2013

At sixteen I was a bit old for an adventure but that was what it was and I was captivated by the place.

Now depending on your take on Tudor history it was either one of those monasteries Henry V111 knocked about in pursuit of a bit of extra cash or was a legitimate target in the campaign to reform the church of some of its more corrupt practices.

Either way it was one of the first to be closed in 1525. In time I will go looking for the records of the abbey to see how corrupt it might have been but for now I know it didn’t offer up much in the way of glittering prizes and apart from one building the entire monastery was demolished .

I have to confess that back in 1966 what I knew about the Dissolution of the Monasteries was not much and it never occurred to me to wonder how what was lost was found.

In fact it is only since I joined the Woolwich and District Antiquarian Society that I have discovered its history.

The plaque to Frank Charles Elliston-Erwood

During 1909-10 the society carried out an archaeological dig, and recently one of those involved has been honoured by a blue plaque which has been placed on his house in Foxcroft Road Shooters Hill.

This was Frank Charles Elliston-Erwood who was born in 1883 and died in 1968.

Sadly another plaque to him on the site is badly damaged so the one on Foxcroft Road is important.

And that is where I shall leave it other than to promise I will dig deep and find out more about both Mr Elliston-Erwood and the dig.

Charles Elliston-Erwood  by C A Rohn, 1953

According to the Treasuer of the Society, "the excavation between 1909-13 and report published in 1915 on Lesnes Abbey was paid for by WADAS.

I’m sure the Central Ref will have a copy, its full title is :-Lesnes Abbey in the Parish of Erith Kent by Alfred W Clapham F.S.A.  (he later became Sir Alfred Clapham) London the Cassio press 1915

It does also come up for sale now & again at £70-£90.

WADAS and Bexley Council paid for further excavations and the laying out of the site in the 1950’s Frank Elliston-Erwood worked on the 1909-13 excavation, & the 1950’s. 

He produced most of the line drawings in the report, he was a Technical Drawing teacher.

I’ve attached a watercolour of him at the 1950’s excavations, he made & is wearing our Presidential badge."

Location; Abbey Wood

Pictures; North west wall of Lesnes Abbey, 2013, Ethan Doyle at English Wikipedia, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license and the blue plaque and painting courtesy of Woolwich and District Antiquarian Society

* Woolwich and District Antiquarian Society, "Report on Explorations at Lesnes Abbey Kent", several volumes 1909 to 1912

** Woolwich and District Antiquarian Society, The Hon Treasurer, 4 Hill End , Shooters Hill, London SE 18 3 NH

Lost and forgotten streets of Salford nu 6 ............ Gravel Lane

Now I know that strictly speaking Gravel Lane is neither lost nor forgotten.

It runs from Blackfriars Road up to Greengate, but that first chunk is hidden underneath the railway viaducts which make it a tad foreboding.

But if you do wander into that dark cavern you will be rewarded by some fine cast iron pillars on the corner of Viaduct Street.

These support the original Liverpool and Manchester Railway’s track which was constructed in 1844 and while it was a substantial structure carrying four railway lines it was not yet the structure we know today.

Back in the late 1840s looking out from the north side of Trinity Church there was still a wide expanse of space beyond which were a  Rope Walk, a series of mills and foundries and a timber yard.

Gravel Lane, 1849

And a walk up Gravel Lane in 1849 would have taken you past the Methodist Chapel, a whole shed load of houses with access to some closed courts and Christ Church which stood between King Street and Queen Street.

All a little different today.

Location; Salford

Pictures; Gravel Lane, 2016 from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and the area in 1849, from the OS for Manchester and Salford, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/